page_title: Myth of the clean Wehrmacht
section_title: Erich von Manstein
hierarchical_section_title: Myth of the clean Wehrmacht / Growth of the myth / Erich von Manstein
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Hitler begrüßt Generalfeldmarschall von Manstein auf einem Feldflugplatz im Osten 1943 [freigegeben am 18.3.1943] Information added by Wikimedia users.English: On 10 March 1943, under heavy security, Hitler flew in to Army Group South's headquarters at Zaporozh'ye, Ukraine. Seen here, Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein is greeting Hitler on the local airfield; on the right are Hans Baur and the Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram von RichthofenTürkçe: Zaporoje'deki Erich von Manstein'in karargâhını ziyaret eden Adolf Hitler (sol). Manstein (orta) ve Wolfram von Richthofen (sağ).
context_page_description: The myth of the clean Wehrmacht is the fictitious notion that the regular German armed forces were not involved in the Holocaust or other war crimes during World War II. The myth denies the culpability of the German military command in the planning and preparation of war crimes. Even where the perpetration of war crimes and the waging of a war of extermination, particularly in the Soviet Union—where the Nazis viewed the population as "subhumans" ruled by "Jewish Bolshevik" conspirators—has been acknowledged, they are ascribed to the "Party soldiers", the Schutzstaffel, and not the regular German military.
  The myth's formation began at the International Military Tribunal held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946 in Nuremberg. Franz Halder and other Wehrmacht leaders signed the Generals' memorandum entitled "The German Army from 1920 to 1945", which laid out its key elements. The memorandum was an attempt to exculpate the Wehrmacht from war crimes. Western powers were becoming increasingly concerned with the growing Cold War and wanted West Germany to begin rearming to counter the perceived Soviet threat.
context_section_description: Erich von Manstein was a key figure in the creation of the Myth of the clean Wehrmacht. His influence was second only to that of Halder. After the war his declared lifetime task was burnishing the memory of the Wehrmacht and "cleaning" it of war crimes. His military reputation as a capable army leader meant his memoirs were widely read, however, they followed the myth of the clean Wehrmacht faithfully. His memoirs do not discuss politics or offer a condemnation of Nazism. Manstein was involved in the Holocaust, and he held the same antisemitic and racist views as Hitler. In his memoirs Manstein emphasised the supposedly good relations the German army had with Russian civilians. He wrote: "Naturally, there was no question of our pillaging the area. That was something the German army did not tolerate". From the outset the German army had treated the populace with savagery. Manstein became overall commander of the Crimea while he was in control of the 11th Army. During this time his troops co-operated with the Einsatzgruppen and the peninsula became Judenfrei—90,000 to 100,000 Jews were killed. Manstein was sent to trial, convicted on nine charges of committing war crimes and sentenced to 18 years in jail. The charges he was convicted of included: not preventing murders in his command area, shooting Soviet war prisoners, carrying out the Commissar Order, and allowing subordinates to shoot Soviet civilians in reprisals. At the time of his trial, the first major crisis of the Cold War, the Berlin Blockade, had just ended. The Allied powers wanted Germany to begin rearming to counter the Soviet threat. The West Germans indicated "not a single German soldier would don a uniform as long as any Wehrmacht officers remained in custody". Consequently, a campaign started to secure the release of Manstein and the other jailed West German war criminals.
  Manstein's defence attorney during his trial was Reginald Paget. William Donovan, who had earlier helped Franz Halder, intervened and recruited his friend Paul Leverkuehn to assist the defence. Paget helped strengthen the myth of the clean Wehrmacht, he defended the army's scorched earth policy on the basis that no army would fight by the rulebook. He defended the shooting of civilians who were armed but not engaged in any partisan action. Both during and after the trial Paget denied Operation Barbarossa was a "war of annihilation". He down-played the racist aspects of Barbarossa and the campaign to exterminate Soviet Jews. Instead, he argued that "the Wehrmacht displayed a large degree of restraint and discipline". Paget's closing statement echoed the core of the myth of the clean Wehrmacht saying "Manstein is and will remain a hero amongst his people". He echoed the cold war politics with the words: "If Western Europe is to be defensible these decent soldiers must be our comrades".
  Captain Basil Liddell Hart, the British historian who was the most influential military historian in the English-speaking world during his lifetime, endorsed the "clean Wehrmacht" myth, writing with undisguised admiration about how the Wehrmacht had been the mightiest war machine ever built that would have won the war if only Hitler had not interfered with the conduct of operations. Between 1949-1953, Liddell Hart was deeply involved in a public relations campaign for freedom  for Manstein after a British military court convicted him of war crimes on the Eastern Front, which Liddell Hart called a gross miscarriage of justice. The trial of Manstein was a turning point in the British people's perception of the Wehrmacht as Manstein's lawyer, the Labor MP Reginald Paget, waged a well oiled and energetic public relations campaign for amnesty for his client, enlisting many politicians and celebrities in the process.
  One celebrity who joined Paget's campaign, the left-wing philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote in a 1949 essay that the enemy today was the Soviet Union, not Germany, and given the way in which Manstein was a hero to the German people, that it was necessary for the war-time western allies to free him fo
caption: Erich von Manstein with Hitler in Eastern Europe
exif: {}